Quinoa rose to global stardom pitched as an unparalleled sustainable development opportunity that heralded a bright future for rural communities devastated by decades of rural-urban migration, civil war, and state neglect. The Quinoa Bust is based in a longitudinal ethnography centered around Puno, Peru, the main quinoa production area in the world’s chief quinoa exporting country. This book traces the social, ecological, technological, and political work that went into transforming a humble Andean grain into a development miracle crop and also highlights that project’s unintended consequences. The Quinoa Bust shows how even efforts based in the best of intentions—counteracting the homogenization of global food supply, empowering small-scale farmers, revaluing local food cultures, and adapting agricultural systems to climate change—can generate new kinds of oppression. At a time when so-called forgotten foods are increasingly positioned as sustainable development tools, The Quinoa Bust offers a cautionary tale of fleeting benefits and ambivalent results.
Emma McDonell is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and coauthor of Critical Approaches to Superfoods.
"Essential for anyone interested in how the politics of food intersects with histories of coloniality, race, development, and nation. Thoughtful and nuanced, this is the kind of anthropology we need."—María Elena García, author of Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race: Stories of Capital, Culture, and Coloniality in Peru
"This is not your typical commodity story that leaves you feeling guilty for enjoying an exotic food. Instead, with both insightful and readable prose, McDonell deftly delivers a more trenchant message: there are no simple solutions to highly complicated ills."—Julie Guthman, author of The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food
"With rich ethnographic detail, McDonell’s compelling story and insightful analysis offer a new way of thinking about the hopes, dreams, and disappointments that fuel capitalism."—Edward F. Fischer, author of Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third Wave Tastemakers Create Value
328 pp.6 x 9Illus: 19 b/w illustrations; 1 map
9780520401709$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Feb 2025